RESUME / CONTACT

RESEARCH

TEACHING
. . Design V (Materials)
. . Graphing Guidelines
. . DrCVD website

RESIDENCE LIFE

STUDENT ORGS.

HOBBIES & INTERESTS

PROJECTS

PROF. SOCIETIES,
AFFILIATIONS
& LINKS

DOWNLOADS

DOCUMENT INDEX

WHAT'S NEW?

During a significant portion of my Master and Ph.D. work, I was supported by a Teaching Assistantship with the Engineering Design Lab V course. Formerly known as the "Materials Lab", this course is typically taken with the Materials lecture course. In addition to the introduction of basic materials and their properties, "Design V" teaches materials processing, design, and testing. The topic for each week's "module" is scheduled to follow on the heels of the lecture material. We used to teach the labs on a rotating topic schedule where each section rotates to a new set of 3 modules (and new Teaching Assistant) every three weeks, but we have found this linear schedule structure allows students to experience the lab in a more intellectually fruitful manner.

Each section consists of 8-10 students, with up to 16 sections per semester accross 4 Teaching Assistants (TAs). The linear format is much better for both the students and the TAs, because the material can be covered in a more cohesive manner and the students interact with the same TA for the duration of the course. Our typical enrollment is about 250 students per calendar year (16 Fall, 4 Spring and 4 Summer sections), which averages to about 60 students per TA.

[insert generic picture of the lab being instructed]

During my 9 terms as a TA for Design V, I have instructed and assisted in the development of many modules. The current roster of module topics includes:

0) Introduction to Graphing and Visual Data Presentation **
1) Basic Properties of Materials
2) Corrosion and Electroplating
3) Tensile Testing and Mechanical Properties
4) Thermo-mechanical Testing of Aluminum
5) Casting and Solidification Processing
6) The Sn-Bi Equilibrium Phase Diagram
7) Heat Treatment of Steel
8) Fabrication of a Solar Cell - Processing
9) Fabrication of a Solar Cell - Characterization
10) Polymers and Polymer-matrix Composites **
11) Reverse Design of a Hard Disk Drive **

** major contributions to the creation of this module were made by myself.

Retired modules I have taught include:

• Powder Metallurgy and Manufacturing
• Soft and Hard Ferrite Magnet Manufacture
• Creep of Solder

In addition to the academic side of the course, I made several major contributions the administration of the course. In order of implementation, these are:

1) Implemented a central TA supply and preparation area;
2) Enforced a "clean and maintain as you teach" policy for facilities and equipment;
3) Created a 40-point course/TA evaluation for all students to fill out each semester;
4) Created and implemented an automated student feedback analysis spreadsheet;
5) Streamlined and automated grade calculation and statistical analysis;
6) Standardized TA introductory materials with new presentations for all 11 modules, then developed them further with colleagues' input;
7) Created the E-321 TA Book of Procedures for the training of new TAs

[photos/links to each?]